Guido Crepax

This volume of Fantagraphics' ambitious series reprinting all of Guido Crepax's most significant comics is the second of two volumes featuring Crepax's comics adaptations from the literary erotica canon. This volume contains Crepax's longest graphic novel -- "Story of O." A woman finds fulfillment when she subsumes her identity by sexually submitting to a secret society. Crepax sumptuously draws every strike of the whip and taps into the sensuality of body modification in his adaptation of this groundbreaking work. Also included is his short story "The Unexpected Exchange," filled with the sensual delights you have come to expect from Crepax: lingerie, bisexuality, the 1920s, and the most symbolically drawn train you've ever seen outside of a Hitchcock film. As the Crepax Archives observes, "The cartoonist, licensed by the authority of classics, ventures deeply into territories of eroticism that up to now he had only dared to touch." In addition to the usual accompanying essays putting Crepax's stories into historical and cultural context, this volume also features Nouveau Roman novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet's (The Voyeur, Last Year at Marienbad) introduction to Story of O.

"Story of a Story" (1981) stars Milanese photographer Valentina. Finding herself home alone, she cheekily decides to fantasize about Georges Bataille's infamous novella The Story of the Eye -- with a twist: she's playing all the roles In the stories "Emmanuelle" (1978) and "Emmanuelle: The Anti-Virgin" (1990), Crepax follows the titular heroine on her sensual journey as the polyamorous wife of a French diplomat in Thailand. While the character is best known as the star of a series of pornographic movies, most notably the 1974 film starring Sylvia Kristel, she originated in a banned 1959 novel by Marayat Rollet-Andriane (pen name Emmanuelle Arsan), a Thai French woman. Emmanuelle has a sexual encounter on a plane, plays a steamy game of squash with a countess, falls for a woman named Bee, and has an intense experience at a temple, among the many other transgressive exploits Crepax details from the novel. And, in an innovation of Crepax's own -- she crosses paths with King Kong This volume is the first of two featuring comics adaptations from the literary erotica canon along with supplemental and contextual material. And, as Antonio Crepax observed in the Crepax Archives, " The cartoonist, ] covered by the authority of classics, ventures into territories of eroticism that up to now he had only dared to touch."

Guido Crepax's (1933-2003) graphic novel Lanterna Magica (1979) is an outstanding example of the psychedelic eroticism for which he became famed in the late 1960s through his character Valentina, who is portrayed here in a complex world of hallucinatory and sexual dreamworlds. Housed in a canvas box, and printed on ivory paper, this large-format limited edition of Lanterna Magica is published in three iterations, each featuring a numbered silkscreen authenticated by the Archivio Guido Crepax and an artistic plate created and signed by the celebrated comic artist Lorenzo Mattotti.The Dolls print, edition numbers 1-100, depicts atypical imagery of multiple figures; Imitations, edition numbers 101-200, shows Valentina facing her doppelganger; and Reflection, edition numbers 201-300, portrays Valentina dreaming in bed.The first edition was introduced by a text by Gillo Dorfles, which is here published in its entirety and which repositions the Valentina series within Crepax's work and the context of its time.

Guido Crepax's (1933-2003) graphic novel Lanterna Magica (1979) is an outstanding example of the psychedelic eroticism for which he became famed in the late 1960s through his character Valentina, who is portrayed here in a complex world of hallucinatory and sexual dreamworlds. Housed in a canvas box, and printed on ivory paper, this large-format limited edition of Lanterna Magica is published in three iterations, each featuring a numbered silkscreen authenticated by the Archivio Guido Crepax and an artistic plate created and signed by the celebrated comic artist Lorenzo Mattotti.The Dolls print, edition numbers 1-100, depicts atypical imagery of multiple figures; Imitations, edition numbers 101-200, shows Valentina facing her doppelganger; and Reflection, edition numbers 201-300, portrays Valentina dreaming in bed.The first edition was introduced by a text by Gillo Dorfles, which is here published in its entirety and which repositions the Valentina series within Crepax's work and the context of its time.

Guido Crepax's (1933-2003) graphic novel Lanterna Magica (1979) is an outstanding example of the psychedelic eroticism for which he became famed in the late 1960s through his character Valentina, who is portrayed here in a complex world of hallucinatory and sexual dreamworlds. Housed in a canvas box, and printed on ivory paper, this large-format limited edition of Lanterna Magica is published in three iterations, each featuring a numbered silkscreen authenticated by the Archivio Guido Crepax and an artistic plate created and signed by the celebrated comic artist Lorenzo Mattotti.The Dolls print, edition numbers 1-100, depicts atypical imagery of multiple figures; Imitations, edition numbers 101-200, shows Valentina facing her doppelganger; and Reflection, edition numbers 201-300, portrays Valentina dreaming in bed.The first edition was introduced by a text by Gillo Dorfles, which is here published in its entirety and which repositions the Valentina series within Crepax's work and the context of its time.

Most of the comics in this volume, spanning 1965 to 1985, have never before been published in English. Crepax's first foray into comics magazines-- "The Curve of Lesmo"--introduces our proto-feminist heroine, Valentina, the globe-trotting Milanese photographer. In other stories, she becomes a mother, outwits a gang of jewel thieves, flashes back to her childhood and adolescence, encounters a mysterious cello, and much more

The third volume of Fantagraphics' monumental collection of Guido Crepax's comics collects the "Baba Yaga" storyline, which recasts the witch of folklore (it was adapted for the screen in 1973 starring Carroll Baker as the middle-aged, lesbian villainess). Under Baba Yaga's influence, a doll, Annette, comes to life; Valentina and her lover, Philip, are forced to act out the fairy tale Bluebeard; and Philip must fight the witch in her lair. Evil Spells also features the famed Italian cartoonist's sinuous adaptations of several literary masterpieces: Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, and a giallo genre take on Edgar Allan Poe.

Spanning the 1960s-1980s, this science-fiction-themed second volume of our complete Guido Crepax library features, in addition to adventuress Valentina, two more of the famed Italian erotic artist's heroines. Marianna is a mysterious friend of Valentina's (or is she? And why do they look so alike?). Belinda is a motorcycle-driving, pop art action star inspired by then-contemporary characters like Barbarella. In The Time Eater, Valentina meets a curious couple in an asylum, encounters strange creatures on a photo assignment, is caught in a Rube-Goldberg-like death trap, and much more.